Donate to the Twin Cities’ only carte blanche, paperless, press and commercial free poetry, which you can read anywhere at anytime… Donate to cut the Publisher out and promote unimpeded and uninfluenced poetry. Donate with PayPal: Any amount (even $1) helps me keep this website rockin’! Don’t be shy, if you like what you read make a contribution.

Posts tagged ‘beer’

how many candle lights do illuminate?
to the beard on my red face,
to the dark beer in my dry hand,
to the classical music on Google Home in my stung ears.
how many? we don’t hug anymore…
thoughts of non-gendered scouts and Forensic Files on tv…
that pod over there listens when i talk:
“OK GOOGLE, tell me a story i haven’t heard before.”
treat me the opposite of how you treat my poetry.
i ponder existence and sharp wits.
calling on the military personnel
to quell my disquiet violence,
the mannequins were disarming in the wax exhibit.
sell the quietude; there are many words and some pennies.
tell them you no likey,
speak in baby to me so i know we are truly friends.
here, sarcasm is part of the local dialect.
a week old and this beer is very smart,
and the beer is German like my name.
months old and my beard is a great disguise, hardly recognize…
but i am royalty from some German story,
some town named Worms near Frankfurt,
dragons lay slain at my feet a millennia ago or so.
my sword gleamed in this light–then, or something like that.
and no volunteerism today, 6 pm they abandoned me.
just coming home to meatballs and soup and stares
and eating and walking and talking awares, about
killing our debt together, i’ll cover the roof
with sniper prowess and fox logic.
wait for its head to pop out, pew, pew, pew…
the interest is what kills you in the end;
do you want to pay interest on cereal or coffee or whatever?
just give me some time now, thoughts.
i am doing what i should have done in the past.

under gray rain sprayed heavens
troves walked in boots and leather at the Dabbler
while leaving skinny smokers on the train
with their mountain bikes and their obsessive plans
forward to old new music and colorful tents and
pretzel necklaces and cardboard cut-outs
of Bill Murray and metal fences and Rhymesayers,
where lights up high on CHS Field, 3rd base.
they were setting the stage for warm flannel
thick beards, flowing flags, slick stickers, soft coasters,
and hips swaying and shouts and cheers, beers!
and laughs–the whole crowd, at broken glass cacophony.
we took it in in gulps and sups and breaths.
saw alcohol abused rounding the bases,
as a doppelganger and DIPA waiting in the wings,
Greenway from North Dakota, Rhombus Brewery.
and artisan everything beer from whiskey casks,told them it must be the water that makes it good.
pine wood smelled of fresh hops
and more lights, don’t water my glass sternly;
im a postmodernist who enjoy labels: i like to
reflect my makeup like rings in a tree
keep going onto one another, like language,
all the way to the bathrooms and fireworks,
attendees hiding the buns at the center of
the table in VIP–VIP doesnt get dessert.
some sort of Seinfeld joke played out here.
the beer was dessert, free t-shirt, free glass, etc.
people laughing, wedding rings, pictures
text messages, cars coming head-on
from Union Depot. more selfies. a poet ponders
walks and writes, drinks listens to a man
driving Uber perhaps tell of everyone else
using excuses, good words, especially for what
we look like–he said, in their image: gods. i watched the traffic.
i get it, like i didnt try to get here very hard…
wet rain shell, spaghetti, wife and son.
Kelly’s is like a bar in my hometown.
more of a sore throat, thank god i dont smoke.
such and such, have to go back for baseball.
such and such, good free beer, tastes like i forgot…

being lazy is my favorite thing to do.
i bike to West Photo to get 35mm film.
i drop money at the bank to pay rent.
i go on Nicollet to get fitted for a suit.
being lazy is great, as it pervades me.
i sit at The Local in downtown and talk.
i notice the bartender and server going.
i tell a joke & move thru tore up streets.
being lazy is my favorite thing to do.
i think i am doing this task so well.
i walk to magazine boxes placing art.
i write poems and prose and no one cares.
i think of how Monday there is change.
i think of how tonight is really tomorrow.
i meet local celebrities and have a chat.
i forget names and don’t mention it.
i get a discount for being a smartass.
i try not to find excuses for being me.
i try not to hear excuses for being you.
being lazy is my favorite thing to do.
i drink water instead of vodka bloodies.
i walk out on the ice and drink a beer.
i take photos of a sunset over trees.
i love the blue sky which lights me pale.
being lazy is my favorite thing to do.
being this lazy takes up so much time.

Turning day to night as a light switch in a room
had shadows evaporating into themselves,
outlines seen were hot and sticky
for the summer humidity and sharp shine.
A black car sheen stood burning
in an open lot as a dead mouse
in grey fur swelled and swarmed with flies.
The sweet cloy of trash hit nostrils
like a left hook of some welterweight
sweating hard, pulling in the ring.
Plastic garbage bags expanded
in the sweltering heat of midday July
becoming tight as the skin of a drum.
Few cotton clouds cast no guard in
vast rich nitrogen blue skyscapes,
going on, what fast changed above.
Seems Sunday was properly labeled forthis weather; there was tan leather,
blue jeans, bright bandanas, and cold beer.
It was unlike any other beautiful day.

How interesting that fireworks now bring us together
when they represent devices that once tore us apart.

-Terry Scott Niebeling

***

here, 10pm, crowds on spread tarps and chairs,
thoughtfully placed earlier,
chatted along a spilt-over sidewalk path,
coming down to the Riverside fest grounds
with family and friends;
these goers were just stepping through, at a time.

taking air along the luminescence of the waters’ edge
waiting for fire, explosions, light and smoke,
waiting for a show of power
on the concussion boom’s holiday eve
of a hot summer day.

notice the faint ghost outline of the Cass st. bridge,
it went up tall toward the south on wet glow,
pale blue in orange light as navigational lights
sent from boats bounced to and fro below signaling.

where mayflies flew, stunk, buzzed;
their fate kept them at lamps
busy for their annual dance.

people in groups—no worse,
buttoned up, oohing and aaaahing,
taking such a spectacle.

for a time
the mass was all American,
for a time nothing else mattered.

viewing were homeless and rich
in the same theatre vantage;
spirits were aloft as this year’s sparkling
in gunpowder and smoke,
the thought that everything was all right,
illuminated on another shore—
in a time of celebration, in a nation
under a spangled flag.